Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Signs placed in Los Angeles and Orange County Sept. 27th and 28th. Quotes from the film Cool Hand Luke"Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."

"You know, them chains ain't medals. You get 'em for makin' mistakes.""Callin' it your job don't make it right.""I know I got no call to ask for much... but even so, You've got to admit You ain't dealt me no cards in a long time. It's beginning to look like You got things fixed so I can't never win out. Inside, outside, all of them... rules and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Now just where am I supposed to fit in?""I tried. I mean, to live always free and above board like you. And, I don't know. I just can't seem to find no elbow room.""I never planned anything in my life.""What we've got here is a failure to communicate..."

Monday, September 29, 2008

Just cleaning up the desktop a bit before the final stretch of the tour. These signs appeared variously along the coast over the last couple of weeks. As I suspected, the relatively innocuous messages of "Peace" and "Peace on Earth" have a lot more staying power than more provokative texts and on the way back down I've seen at least two dozen or so signs still standing from the start of the trip. Estimated viewership: Millions. Just... millions.

Eventually, I hope, the people who want peace in this world will take a cue from the people who simply want to sell crap: advertising pays. Especially when the founding fathers have given you carte blanche to do it for free.

“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” -Fredrick Douglass"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes." ~ Thomas Paine“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." ~ James Madison

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson"A man with no enemies is a man with no character." -Paul Newman

Sunday, September 28, 2008

"I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me.""The concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has less, or someone who isn't hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity. I am confounded at the stinginess of some institutions and some people. I'm bewildered by it. You can only put away so much stuff in your closet. In 1987, the average CEO against someone who was working in his factory was 70 times. It's now 410 times.""Building weapons that we don’t need, don’t work, and aren’t necessary, and have no mission — that’s not bad politics, that’s robbery.""I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out."

Saturday, September 27, 2008

"To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true." -Bertrand Russell"If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave." ~ Samuel Adams

"If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote." -David Foster Wallace"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." ~ Stephen Roberts

"We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize." -Thich Nhat Hanh

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I put up a lot of signs in the Bay Area yesterday, and took a lot of pictures. These are some of the better ones.(Signs made with used billboard vinyl or cardboard and paint and lettered with an overhead projector. They're placed next to freeways under the assumed protection of first amendment freedom of speech and the very real protection of the fact that if you want to put a sign up somewhere there's not a hell of a lot anyone can do to stop you.)I know that the destruction of the planet seems petty compared to the current collapse of capitalism, but let's face it, $700 Billion is chump change when it comes to buying new planets. I think people will start caring more about the great outdoors as more and more find themselves living there.(Some of about 20 signs placed on the 101, 80, 280 and 580 around the SF Bay)

I've been getting a lot of mail and search engine traffic regarding the legality of putting signs up on freeways lately and, having done it well over 5,000 times now all I can say is go for it. When it comes to speaking out politically the founding fathers were pretty clear that it should be full and unfettered. If you're not selling something or threatening somebody, your right to political speech is not only protected, it's practically the most protected right you have.In other words, when it comes to free speech, the constitution is on your side. If the police or the courts want to stop you, it's their job to figure out how, not yours.So far this month I've put up over 140 signs between San Diego and Seattle, and will finish the trip back down over the next couple of days. When I got home yesterday I found this in the mailbox, over the Pasadena Freeway in downtown LA:Keep 'em coming folks..

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."~ Edmund Burke"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself..." -Mark TwainSigns made with cardboard, paint and billboard vinyl, lettered with an overhead projector. They were placed on Sept. 23rd on the 80, 580 and 101 in Davis, Vacaville, Berkeley, Richmond, Novato, Larkspur and San Rafael."When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist."~ Archbishop Helder Camara"Necessity never made a good bargain."~ Ben Franklin"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion."~ Oscar Wilde"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."~ Sun Tzu"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."~ Albert Einstein"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do."~ Voltaire